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Advice on professional terminology

2015

Good morning!!

I could really use everyone's help! I was a
passionate CYW who was diagnosed with GBM (brain cancer) 4 years ago.
I'm doing great! Doctors tell me not to work, as stress can increase a
recurrence, plus I have some cognitive difficulties (more so when I'm
tired, evenings).

ANYHOW, my heart is still in this and I try
to be involved any way I can. I see some of my older clients from time
to time, and they like to chat and share what's been going on in their
lives. Plus I have a few from years back online, who I like to encourage
from time-to-time when I see then post that they are struggling with
something. I've been asked by a young women to be a respite contact for
her 8 year-old daughter. I know the woman and I've met her daughter, and
I agreed to do this. It's a casual thing, and I'm quite excited to do
some real work.

The reason I reached out, is that although
my heart is in this and I feel confident I can do a good 'job' with
her...I am being asked to provide a list of ways that I can assist her,
and what sort of things I will do with her to help her. I feel like it's
so natural to me but I have a hard time being specific about how I could
help her and the terminology needed to sound professional. Life skills
have always been my 'forte', along with helping youth figure out how to
create options for themselves and how to feel confident about
themselves. I have always been a very positive person, including through
my own illness.

I guess I just need a 'refresher' of terms
to explain my plan for helping her. I think I was always a bit of a
perfectionist with spelling and words, however my operation affected
this somewhat. I want to help her work on her reactions to situations
and increase her confidence. Any help on how to express these ideas
using better 'terms' or can offer any other ideas would be SO helpful.
The schools are not prepared to deal with her, only because they don't
have the right people to do it (or enough people) and they keep her home
half of the day, every day, so her mother is not able to work a day-job
and has also explained to me that she doesn't feel confident teaching
her daughter (which they tell her to do) when she did not even graduate
high-school. Crazy. I feel there is a way to help her fight this, and I
do plan to reach out to my past coworkers for assistance also.

Many thanks for reading...a bit of a
mish-mash but hopefully someone will reply!!! 

C. Roy
...

Dear Clover,

You’ve expressed yourself very well and your caring
is clear. They are lucky to have you.

It sounds as if you would be providing her with our
CYC specialties, which are:

• Connecting with an adult-wary kid
• Being in the moment and working within her life-space
• Use models like the circle of courage to determine and meet the needs
of the young person
• Using relationship technology to help the child to attach / have
healthy relationship with others
• Assist with behaviour management strategies and activity programming
(around life skills)
• And as one of our pioneers Urie von Bronfenbrenner said: “Every child
needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her”,
and you would have the time to be this for a child that may at times be
hard to love.

These were some thoughts that came to mind. May the
encounter be blessed and a catalyst for the young person to become
comfortable in her own skin.

Rika Swanzen
...

Good morning!

This is my first time trying to contribute to a
discussion so I hope I'm doing it correctly!

Anyway, I think that you already have the
terminology. You just used it! 'Life skills' and '...help her work on
her reactions to situations and increase her confidence' are perfect.
Also, I would say that if this plan is for the mother I maybe wouldn't
use too much CYW jargon anyway, unless she specifically requested that.
Personally it's just my philosophy to keep things simple. If she has
already asked you to do this my guess is that she's confident in your
skills and just wants to know what you'd do. You don't really need to
'sell' yourself any more, just explain the plan like you would to
someone who didn't know all the fancy terms. Obviously this is just my
opinion and I don't have all the information so I may be way off track
but I hope it helps!

Also, a small note from my personal experience:
trust your skills. They're still there, even if they haven't been used
in a while. I've been out of frontline work for a while now and was
starting to worry that I'd forget things, but as I've encountered
certain situations recently I realised that all my skills are still
there and come back when I need them. Like you said, your heart is still
in this so I think once you get back to things in this situation you'll
regain confidence in your skills!

Good luck!

Megan Besner
…

Work from a strengths based perspective

Focus on improving Social Skills (lets face it, not
making a full day of school is directly related to inappropriate social
skills)

Lisa Penner
...

Hi Clover.

Wonderful work you are planning. Listening to what
you are saying I hear something like the following statement. I hope it
helps add some clarity and sparks some more ideas! You know what you
have to offer. Best of luck in your work with this young person!

“This young person is missing out on daily,
developmental opportunities to experience success due the current
situation. The assigned school has proven unprepared to support these
needs and the parents are missing opportunities to support the family
due to the demands of providing care and supervision. My child and youth
care work can (1) provide respite care for primary caregiver, (2)
support development of self-confidence and practical life skills, and
(3) identify practical options and positive choices for daily living.”

James Freeman
_____

THE INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK (CYC-Net)
Registered Non-Profit and Public Benefit Organisation in the
Republic of South
Africa (031-323-NPO, PBO 930015296)